


One Life in a Thousand

by everybreathagift



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: It's just a lot of really sad stuff here guys, M/M, Nothing is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, mentions of animal death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:40:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25176274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybreathagift/pseuds/everybreathagift
Summary: Will has a fear of growing old, and he's always been a little selfish where Hannibal is concerned, anyway.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 16
Kudos: 98





	One Life in a Thousand

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Je me souviens](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14497494) by [AVegetarianCannibal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVegetarianCannibal/pseuds/AVegetarianCannibal). 



> Inspired by the heart wrenching Je me souviens by AVegetarianCannibal. Go give it a read. I did, and then this poured out of me. I'd like to apologize in advance.

He’s been asking Hannibal to do it for years. Seven years, to be exact. Since the day he realized that he couldn’t keep up with Gumbeaux on their runs anymore. When he had to stop half-way to catch his breath, massage his aching knees back to life before being able to return home.   
  
“Could you live without me?” He’d said, casual as anything.    
  
“If I had to,” Hannibal had lied, stoic as ever. 

Will had said he didn’t want to grow old. He didn’t want to feel sick, or be touched by dementia. To forget himself, or Hannibal. He didn’t want to become a burden. He used that word far too often. So, he’d asked Hannibal to kill him. Something painless but quick. An overdose of morphine, perhaps. Poetic.    
  
He brings it up twice a year, nearly to the day. Hannibal hasn’t figured out why those days are significant, and he’s too fearful to ask. If he asks, Will might push the issue. Hannibal has managed to skirt it so far.    
  
“After our trip to Rome.”    
  
“After your next birthday.”    
  
“After Christmas.”    
  
But he knows, he won’t be able to skirt it any longer. Not after the silent but apparent realization Will had this morning.    
  
Hannibal was sitting in front of the fire; he finds himself so chilly these days, reading and sipping his coffee, waiting for Will to come back from taking out the animal. Roughly fifty-six minutes later, Hannibal heard a whine. Gumbeaux was still in the house, sitting by the front door, leash still attached to her collar.    
  
Another fourteen minutes crawled by as Hannibal stood there staring, waiting for Will to return. Waiting for an explanation. Another twenty minutes, and Hannibal would have gone looking for him. It didn’t come to that.    
  
Will walked in, looking only slightly confused. “Hey.”    
  
“Hello,” Hannibal answered, stepping forward, quietly hoping to smell that fevered sweetness coming off Will’s skin. But Will didn’t smell like encephalitis, or any other illness for that matter.    
  
Old age doesn’t have a scent. Old age only smells of death.    
  
“Where’ve you been, darling?” Hannibal asked, forcing a measured tone.    
  
“I-” Will swallows, looking around for a moment before meeting Hannibal’s eyes again. “Why was I outside?”    
  
“You were supposed to be walking your dog but you left without her.”    
  
“Yeah. That’s right.” He nodded, visibly trying to recall how that happened. It felt like a knife under Hannibal’s ribs when Will couldn’t.    
  
Will took Gumbeaux for her walk, and the rest of the day had passed without incident. Which is precisely why Hannibal is delaying going up to bed, where he knows Will is waiting for him. He knows the conversation they’re going to have, and he feels heavier with dread than he did waiting for Jack Crawford to arrest him.    
  
“I brought your glasses up for you, I know you wanted to finish your book tonight,” Will says when Hannibal walks into their bedroom, looking every bit as handsome as he did the first time they met.    
  
He’s grayer around the temples, and his smile lines are etched heavily into his cherubic face, but no less beautiful. Hannibal has aged, as well, but most of his aging is felt rather than seen. The ache in his shoulders, the creak of his knees. Nothing of any importance. 

“Actually, I’m rather tired but thank you, darling.”   
  
It’s a lie. It’s a terrible lie, and Will knows it. He waits for Hannibal to climb under the covers with him, reaching over to shut off the light before curling into Hannibal’s chest. Like they’ve done every night for years now.   
  
The minutes of silence only allow the tension to grow thicker.   
  
“I know you don’t want to have this conversation,” Will says, hushed, trailing gentle fingertips over Hannibal’s ribs.   
  
“No,” Hannibal replies, just as quietly but resolute. “I don’t.”   
  
Will smiles against him. “I know. You’ve managed to avoid it this long.”   
  
“I’d like to keep avoiding it.”   
  
After a long pause, Will leans up to look into Hannibal’s eyes. He looks glorious in only moonlight. A faceless skull etched in marble. Hannibal’s entire world embodied in flesh.  
  
“I don’t want to forget you, love,” Will whispers, a soft, melancholy note in his voice. “And I don’t want you to have to watch me forget you.”   
  
Hannibal closes his eyes, and the thousand lifetimes they’ve lived together flashes behind his lids. Will kisses him, and Hannibal feels the earth shatter beneath him. Will has already decided for him, he can tell.   
  
“I want you to remember me like this. Remember _us_ like this. I don’t want the scent of my dying body tainting everything around you. Please, don’t let me go to my grave with only indignity.” When Hannibal still doesn’t answer, Will nudges him and there’s another smile in his voice when he speaks. “You can give me a perfect day tomorrow beforehand. Like taking a dog out for ice cream before putting it down.”   
  
Hannibal wants to ask how Will expects him to live without that morbid humor, or the sound of Will’s footsteps coming down the hallway in the mornings. He doesn’t ask. Instead, he nods and pulls Will close enough that he can imagine their ribs shattering and splintering together in bloody knots and shards.   
  
~***~  
  
It is a perfect day. They make love on the terrace in the bright morning sun, slow and easy, as though they have all the time in the world. After breakfast, Will’s favorite crepes, they make love again, on the kitchen floor like impatient teenagers.   
  
“Promise me you won’t cry, I won’t be able to take it if you cry, love-”   
  
“I won’t,” Hannibal says, but the immovable lump in his throat suggests otherwise.   
  
Will spends an hour with his head in Hannibal’s lap, looking at old pictures of their various vacations across the world. He spends another alone with Gumbeaux, and Hannibal refuses to resent the innocent animal for taking that precious time away from him.   
  
The guest bedroom smells like a hospital. Will refused to consider their room for his deathbed.   
  
“You have to sleep here after I’m gone. I won’t have it.”   
  
It seems very strange to Hannibal that Will genuinely believes he’ll be on this plane any length of time after him. He’s already got a second syringe at the ready.   
  
They’ll only be apart for a short amount of time. Hannibal can manage that.   
  
The day goes by so quickly. Hannibal, not for the first time, wishes he could force it to reverse. Ten years. Five. Or even just one day. Maybe one more day would be enough.  
  
Will is laying on his side, a serene smile on his face as he watches Hannibal kneel next to the bed, syringe in hand.   
  
“I love you,” Will says, so open, as though those three words don’t shake Hannibal to his core every time, as they have since the first time.   
  
He finds the vein. It’s the only time in his life his hand has been anything less than steady as he pushes the plunger. 

He licks the droplet of blood that follows the needle, and closes his eyes. He promised, and he can’t waste not even a second. They’re too precious.    
  
“You’re going to be okay,” Will tells him gently, carding his fingers through Hannibal’s grey hair.    
  
“I’ll be right behind you,” Hannibal vows, kissing each of Will’s fingertips.    
  
“No, you can’t.” Will says vehemently. “You can’t leave Gumbeaux. Suicide is the enemy, anyway, remember?”    
  
Hannibal clenches his teeth. He promised. “I will stay with your animal until it’s her time, then. After, I’m coming for you. Don’t think death will be your escape, beloved, I  _ will _ find you.”    
  
Will hadn’t made any promises, and so tears slip freely down his cheeks, a lazy chuckle leaving his mouth. “Not if I find you first.”    
  
Will dies at eight thirty-four on a Tuesday evening, a soft smile curving his face. Hannibal breathes in his curls one last time, kisses his cooling skin, and goes to dig his grave in their garden.    
  
He only has to wait three to five years. He can manage that. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry.


End file.
